Media slammed for trying to discredit poll

Lloyd Gumbo Herald Reporter
SOME sections of the international and local media have come under fire for seeking to discredit the harmonised elections that have been endorsed by African observer teams. Media authorities said they were disappointed with the way some media organisations turned a blind eye on positives about the elections while dedicating their energy on inventing faults about the flawless process.
Secretary for Media, Information and Publicity Mr George Charamba yesterday said some international media organisations came to Zimbabwe expecting violence would mar the elections and found it difficult to report events as they unfolded.
“The foreign media came here with a mindset for violence and it took quite some interactions to get them to drop that template into looking at us with a fresh pair of eyes,” said Mr Charamba.

“It was interesting that even media units from as near a country as South Africa were battling to uphold that story of violence. A classical example came through eNCA where the anchor person in Johannesburg kept trying to probe on incidence of violence whilst the reporter who was based in Bulawayo kept insisting that there was no asis for expecting violence in Zimbabwe.

“Secondly, the same channel suggesting that the media was coming under a severe surveillance from the authorities. Again the reporter insisting that in fact they were free to pursue their profession unhindered. So the negative mindset was quite entrenched.

“We also had another amusing one from SABC Africa Channel. The script was to say Zimbabwe was on a knife edge. Again trying to make much out of a simple unit of police officers who had deployed in the city centre. So you have this script which was written before people left their countries and it was lamentable that even African media units seem to suffer from the same negative mindset.”

Mr Charamba said while Western countries and their media outlets were agitating that Zimbabwe should allow international election observers, they shifted their focus from these observers after realising that the process was flawless and relied on a local non-governmental organisation that sang the MDC-T tune.

“The focus shifted from international observers to local observers and even then, one local observer who was ZESN. So suddenly ZESN became far more important, far more accurate, far more dependable than the international observer teams that these international Press was agitating for.

“Of course no regard was given to the fact that ZESN had been created by Western interests and that ZESN was in fact an affiliate of MDC-T.
The compulsive instinct was to fault find and when no faults were apparent, faults had to be invented.

“But you also must grant that there were well-meaning Western media organisations including some which were British. Those were prepared to look at our situation for what it was. Indeed we had reports which were salutary. I want to also indicate that we had some very disturbing behaviour by certain units of the local media if you follow the presentation of the Sadc Electoral Commissions Forum authorities, you read agitation in reporters who were angry on behalf of the MDC-T.

“You read agitation on faces of reporters who were angry on behalf of the MDC-T.”